Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear

Frozen in terror during a mountain descent, award-winning journalist Eva Holland reaches her breaking point. Since childhood, she's been gripped by two debilitating phobias: fear of losing her mother, and fear of heights. The worst has already happened: Eva's mother died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2015. But now--after an arduous, embarrassing, and tearful finale to her ice-climbing expedition--Eva decides, enough. Fear may define her past, but she won't let it dictate her future.

Thus begins Holland's quest to renegotiate her inhibiting relationship with fear. In stirring, raw prose, she reveals what it's like to live in the clutches of paralyzing dread. And with remarkable courage, she tests the limits of what one can do to live less fearfully--from engaging in daring adventure to cutting-edge research: She confronts her acrophobia by jumping out of an airplane, explores the lives of rare individuals who feel little or no fear, and meets with scientists working to eliminate phobias with a single pill.

Of course, one doesn't have to go out of the way to face fear; by horrible coincidence, a series of freak accidents leaves Holland deeply shaken. Determined to stay the course, she seeks out a surprisingly effective treatment involving eye movement--to reckon with lingering trauma and anxiety to rid herself of intrusive memories and panics while driving.

Ultimately, Holland's odyssey sheds light on universal questions: How do we feel fear, and why? Is fear necessary? Is it rooted in the body or the mind? And it brings her ever closer to knowing: Is there a better way to feel afraid? Finding the nerve to face down her fears, Holland not only shows us how to grapple with our own, but invites us to embrace them as a way to live happier and feel more alive.

“"Science and psychology inform the engaging memoir of an author on a self-help mission. . . . Her goal is not to eliminate fear, but to put it into perspective."-- Kirkus Reviews”

Nerve is brave and tender, and an example of why journalists treating themselves as guinea pigs should never completely go out of style.-- "WIRED"
A TIME Top 100 Must-Read Book of 2020
An International Bestseller

"An intimate and wide-ranging look at fears and how we overcome them.-- "The New York Times"
A fascinating book . . . Much of the enjoyment of Nerve involves rooting for Holland as she attempts to wrestle her own fears to the ground, and to report on the outcome of that effort would spoil that pleasure. It's enough to say that by the end of this account, her relationship to fear has changed, something that may well happen to the readers of her engaging book.-- "Shelf Awareness"
Brave and emboldening. Nerve exposes fear for what it really is: a flush of chemicals, an evolutionary instinct, a mirror to the self.--Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders
I really enjoyed Nerve--Holland perfectly balances her personal story with actual science, and I appreciated the clarity with which she describes her experiences. It gave me a lot to think about.--Alex Honnold, rock climber and author of Alone on the Wall
The publication of Nerve could be one of the most germane and significant books to help people navigate through our current dark and unfamiliar emotional and physical territory. With acuity of purpose, author Holland demonstrates to her audience that armed with a baseline of knowledge, fear is an emotion that can be experienced, examined, and conquered, thereby strengthening the human psyche and its ability to deal with future catastrophes.-- "New York Journal of Books"

Eva Holland is a correspondent for Outside magazine, and a former editor at Up Here, the magazine of Canada's Far North. Her work has also appeared in Esquire, Wired, Bloomberg, Pacific Standard, AFAR, Smithsonian, Grantland, Seattle Met, National Geographic News, and many other outlets. Her work has been nominated for a Canadian National Magazine Award, anthologized in The Best Women's Travel Writing and The Best Canadian Sports Writing, and listed among the notable selections in multiple editions of The Best American Essays, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Travel Writing. She lives in the Yukon Territory.

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